You’ve probably heard from a digital marketing pro, or a video production company that having a video on your website will help boost your search rankings. But how does this actually work?
Well, let’s start with Youtube. Youtube is the most popular video platform in the world (as well as being the second biggest general search engine), with over 5 billion videos watched every single day. This means a lot of people are searching for videos that might be linked to your business and your industry, be that accountancy videos, real estate videos, or any number of specific industries. That’s a lot of potential work that you might be missing out on, whether you’re a b2b or a b2c business. Think about how many potential customers you could be reaching if you had a well produced and well marketed video.
Youtube allows you to write whatever you want as a description for the video, meaning you can link your website, reference blog posts, push viewers to download a whitepaper, whatever you want. All of these backlinks to your website help boost your search rankings. Make sure the title is catchy and informative, again if your company name or industry is in the title, then this is another way that potential customers might be able to find you! So ask yourself, if you’re so keen to rank highly on Google, why wouldn’t you want to on Youtube as well?
Speaking of Google, did you know who owns Youtube? That’s right! The biggest search engine in the world also happens to own the second biggest. This means that Google loves to promote Youtube videos, and websites with Youtube links on them. Why wouldn’t you want to promote your own product, especially if there are adverts on there? Websites that feature Youtube video links tend to be ranked higher than those without.
Seems easy right? Remember it’s not as simple as just “having a video though”. One of the most important things that Google also takes into account is how visitors people stay on your website. This means that if your video is unwatchably bad and not well thought out, nobody is going to stick around. Your video content still has to be good if you want people to stay and watch it and get that session duration up. If you’ve made videos before, it’s always worth looking at the analytics and seeing when viewers tend to drop off. This will help you find the optimum length for your video content and keep viewers engaged for long enough to get all the necessary information across.
Everyone wants to make a great video, of course they do. One of the other key advantages to having an engaging and exciting promotional video for your website is that people are much more likely to share it. Think about backlinks like I mentioned earlier, if 1000 people share your video link and it features your website in the description, that’s a lot of extra interest in your site. Bear in mind that social video is shared roughly 1200% more than text and images combined. Think about that reach.
One final tip that could do wonders for bringing in traffic to your website: make some “how to” video content. You may have noticed that when you Google “how to fix a tyre” for example, a video often comes up at the top of the search list. So think about “how to submit VAT return” if you’re an accountancy firm, or perhaps “how to write a CV” if you’re a recruitment agency. There are so many opportunities here to sneak your video content to the top of the search rankings. How about “how to boost your Google search ranking”? These are the terms that people search for, so show your expert knowledge in an engaging video to bring people to your website. Customers are much more likely to buy from you if you come across as the expert. Throw in some humour and you might even end up with a viral video that gets your brand known to thousands of new people.
To find out more about how video can help improve your visibility online and boost search engine ranking, get in touch with RAW Pictures to speak to a member of our team.
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